Because You Have Been Deprived

Here are some pictures I took in the French Laundry's garden in Yountville a couple of months ago. It was crazy how much stuff they still had growing that late. Everything is all covered up in white blankets now, hiding from the frost we had two weeks ago.

The spring flowers are already starting here on the ranch, halfway through January. Some of those crazy, precocious narcissi were going mid-December, but now the bright mustard is emerging and the camellias and magnolias are blooming, too. I barely got a taste of winter, but I know this January warm spell is just a teaser. Hopefully we'll get a few more good soakings before spring really starts.

Power Naps

Did I mention that my co-workers are bums?

Doesn't my eye look kind of reptilian in the header picture? My eye is not really scaly like that, just in case you were worried. It has something to do with blowing it out like that exposure-wise. Makes it look like a dinosaur eye made out of clay.

23 Useless Things to Know About Me

1. I don't like wind chimes. Fine for other people, ok to hear the whisper of them far away, but not on my house.

2. In elementary school, the boy who taught me how to snap my fingers was left handed. I can still only snap the fingers on my left hand.

3. I honk and wave at anyone holding a sign and wearing a costume. Especially a gorilla costume.

4. Once in an emergency at work, I was drafted to arrange flowers in a hurry for what I thought was going to be a fancy lunch-e-o-n (as opposed to just lunch). I grabbed the only flowers at hand, some coral-colored camellias in the back of the building, and did my best, which was pretty bad in this instance, and included petals sprinkled across the tablecloth. It turned out that it was just five salesmen eating sandwiches on paper plates. It was embarrassing.

5. Once in a different emergency, I was the second person to arrive at the scene of an accident. I made sure the first person was calling 911, then I went under the semi truck to check on the woman who had intentionally walked in front of it. She was breathing slowly and heavily, and her leg was bent at an awkward angle with the bone sticking out. Her pants leg was hooked on the underside of the truck, holding her leg up. I unhooked it and laid it on the ground. Then I reached inside of her jacket hood, which had twisted around to cover her face, to see if her breathing was obstructed or I suppose, if her head was damaged. It was not. It was a very strange and intimate moment to have my hand inside the warm pocket of air in her hood, hearing her breathing and feeling for blood or brain or skull, my fingers touching her thin brown hair. She was unconscious and I stayed with her until the paramedic crawled under with me to take over. Then I went to work. I found out later that she lived.

6. When I was in my twenties, if I had had a daughter, her name would have been Eleni or Heleni, after a little girl I met on a train in Greece.

7. My only career ambition for a very long time was to be the Koolaid Mom: the one with the house that all the kids wanted to come over to. For a while I told people I was an Art Therapy major, then a History of Consciousness major, neither of which I ever was.

8. I am way too serious.

9. I used to go on diets in high school that consisted of Diet Coke plus something like raisins or popcorn, ascribing magical powers to the food, as though I was on the verge of discovering the next Cabbage Diet. The diets never lasted very long, nor were they ever very successful. (Then again, I only weighed 130 lbs.)

10. I make friends slowly but well.

11. I've always wanted to have a big mouth and or a big nose. I am envious of women with strong features.

12. The whites of my eyes show all the way around my irises if I open them wide.

13. In my pocket, there is usually.....
a third of a used dryer sheet,
a receipt,
a clean doggie poo bag,
a barrette or hair tie and/or crumbs from dog treats

14. When people say things like "expresso" or "nucular" or "sommenier" it drives me bananas. The fancier the word they mess up, the dumber it sounds.

15. I believe that when people say "stop being so sensitive" they probably just said something mean.

16. I prefer books to short stories, although I have read good short stories. They seem contrived to leave you hanging, even when they are very good. (Exception: every story in this book is excellent. Ditto Kate Chopin.)

17. I don't read mysteries; they are too predictable.

18. When I was in high school, I often wore a pink hooded sweatshirt with the drawstring ends tied into nooses. And I had a terrible crush on a senior football player named Lance Ward.

19. As a freshman or sophomore, I invited Lance Ward (who was some kind of "back" on the football team--running or quarter or line or something, and three years older) to my house so that I could help him with his French homework. (If I had been remotely hot at that age, that could have been a really excellent metaphor.) We studied together on the floor of the front room. I provided a repast of oranges. Lance ate the peel in addition to the orange. I even made a tape of old Beatles songs to play softly in the background. I think he still got a D on the final.

20. Later, I wrote a painfully bad poem about him that included the word "noone," which I meant to be "no one," but I wasn't sure at the time whether it was two words or one.

21. I don't like bumper stickers. Same as religion, slogan t-shirts, or wind chimes: fine for other people, but not for me. Love to read them, but don't put them on my car.

22. In college, I won two prizes in a city-wide poetry competition, first and third.

23. My favorite doll's name was Sasha. She is in a toybox in my garage right now. I check on her from time to time.

Outside of a Dog

Is there a better problem to have than too many books to choose from? I was standing in a bookstore just off the square in Sonoma today, on a beautiful, sunny day, contemplating a stack of books I was about to purchase.

It made me think of the armloads of plastic-covered books I used to tote home from the air-conditioned library in the summers in Modesto, arranging and re-arranging them so that I could read the very best one last. Sometimes I'd sneak that one back on top if I couldn't wait. Holding the books in my hands, I anticipate with relish my private time to read, when I'll curl up in bed in my warm flannel pajamas and close the door on the rest of the world. Reading is one of my greatest pleasures.

Standing there in a beam of sun this afternoon, I started to question my potential purchase. All three books were intriguing, quirky stories with the right covers and accolades. But did I really need all three right this minute? Could I wait and save a little money? Then it occurred to me: three books is less than half the cost of a fancy dinner out, and they last ages longer, so actually, I'm saving money.

I know that isn't the most earth-shattering news in the world. I've not posted for a while, and I'm feeling a little rusty and self-conscious.

Did you know that in the 7th grade, I was a library aide? I loved books then, and I loved the library. It never occurred to me that it was an incredibly nerdy thing to do. My favorite job was covering new books in those Brodart plastic covers and gluing in the pockets for the check-out cards. I got to sit in a quiet room, with long, rectangular windows divided up into rows of panes looking out onto a wide lawn. The kind of windows that go all the way almost to the ceiling and are hinged to swing outward so that you open and close them with a long pole that has a hook on the end.

In my quiet room, I would open each book and look it over, looking through all of the pictures if there were any. Then I would remove the dust jacket, select the right size cover, neatly crease it to fit the paper, seal it and slide the cover's ends carefully back on the book.

Sometimes I would write out four-letter words in cursive on the backs of the card pockets with the glue, but not very often. Mostly I tried to make each new book look crisp and perfect in its protective cover. Did you know that a pristine dust jacket can add hundreds of dollars in value to a collectible first edition? Neither did I, until I checked out the site for the book cover company. I was googling it to make sure they were actually made of plastic.

That was the same library where I checked out and read "The Yearling" and cried and cried and cried. And where my friend Marc "Mocha" Davis and I laughed so hard no sound came out.

Hope this will do for now.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx

Hee Come Sanny Claus, Hee Come Sanny Claus

I am missing my Elvis Christmas tonight! (Or should I say, "I am missin' me some Elvis Christmas"?) There have been many Christmases in my life, of all different sorts, in all sorts of locations, but the Elvis "Blue Christmas" album has been a constant. My sister and I could sing along with it in both 33 and 45 rpm. I'm thinking about that tonight as Mike and I ice these impromptu sugar cookies.




What about this guy? Rabbit? Sheep? Deer? Moose?


I had a plan early in the week to start a rich beef stew this morning so that by Christmas Eve we'd be curled up on the sofas with our tummies full of cozy comfort food. I bought all the ingredients in advance, and planned not to go to the store again this week. But somehow the day got away from me (including two trips to the store) and we ended up having cheese, wine and bread for dinner, after an aperitif of rum-laced eggnog. Then we got into decorating the cookies and it was too late for anything else. Such is the Christmas eve of the kidless. Still have to finish shtitching (typo or wine?) the letters on Pixie's stocking, since this is her very first Christmas and she almost didn't get one.

I have been thinking a lot about the things that I remember from Christmases past. Skiing, and hot chocolate back at Grandma's house. Mom's gingerbread. Singing the Elvis Christmas songs with my sister. Flannel nightgowns borrowed from Grandma. Heavy woolen quilts on the living room floor. In later years, Mom's clam chowder. Morning bacon, mimosas or bloody marys at Dad's (whatever else you think of them, Southerners do know how to liquor up a holiday). There is much, much more, but my husband is watching television by himself on Christmas Eve, and I just can't continue to let that happen. Maybe more tomorrow.

After the Fact

Here's the golden heart ornament I agonized over a few years ago. And I hope that no one got the impression because I said "damn presents" or something like that, that I resent buying presents. I LOVE buying presents. My only regret is that I can't buy all of the presents, at any price I want, for everyone. I love to give presents at least as much if not more than I like to receive them.

The Junk Drawer of Christmas Past

I did not send any Christmas cards this year. And, unless I said something that simultaneously offended about 15 people (which is totally possible), neither did many of my friends.

But not to worry, because I still have all of your Christmas cards from last year... and probably the year before. And quite possibly many years before that, if I poke around a bit. Until recently, the ones from last year lived in the top right hand drawer of my desk, where all of the "go to" stuff is supposed to be. The high-use, need-it-now stuff, like, oh, I don't know...STAPLES! or a STAPLER! or a pair of sharp SCISSORS! or a MARKING PEN! I'm shouting these things at you because they seem like ACTION THINGS! Things that are ready to spring into service immediately, poised as they are in the ergonomically located top right hand drawer. But my top right hand drawer is not organized thus.

In my top right hand drawer (which I am opening now) you will find the following: patch kit for inflatable bed (if I spring a leak, it will be ready for duty pronto), a "label blaster" punch-style label maker, an out of date rubber address stamp, a two line phone adapter (one of several I own), shoelaces, ribbon, hand lotion, sunscreen (you can never have too much of that), cough drops (who knows how old those are), a printout from West Maui Tiki Tours, a soft cloth for cleaning my computer screen, last year's calendar, Photoshop's "100 Hot Tips for CS3," a picture of Rusty and Jennifer's kids, with Santa, from last year, a stack of all of your Christmas cards, a postcard my mom sent me from York in 2006, before she came back and found out she had to have a quadruple bypass, birth announcement for Juliana Socoloff, my 1984 AYH membership card with serious looking photo (never know when that's going to come in handy), a postcard of a tongue, my poetry journal from 1982 or so, which I dug up to submit to Cringe, but which didn't make the cut, a very big antique marble, many, many binder clips, a baby's first thank you card from Abbie Duff, a bottle of prescription pills that I took one of and never took another of, a hilarious card from Karen Farley from her ex, Richard Gere, and the Tibetan monks, the picture-hanging kit I was looking for this morning to hang the stockings, two old journals, a bag full of beer caps made into magnets, foam helmet liners, a heavy silver cuff watch I used to love but haven't worn since I stopped working in an office (Damn, this is a big drawer!), a cute container of clips and tacks from The Design Group, three glue sticks, a red stamp pad, a bag of miscellaneous IKEA parts and screws, a giraffe keychain (that is very important), and maybe five other things which I have just run out of the energy to catalog.

But this is not about junk drawers, or why we have them, or why my most-accessible drawer is full of the least usable stuff. This is about your Christmas cards. This year, many of them became gift tags for presents. Very handsome ones, at that. I just cut the fronts into squares, punched a hole, then added a slit for the ribbon to slip into. Voila. And I'm contemplating sending out Thank You postcards, cut from the fronts of these old cards, too. But if I tell you, that will spoil your surprise at receiving a cheap, recycled, late Christmas card from me for New Year's. So shhhhhhh.

Last Minute

Just in case you still need a last-minute gift, here are a few ideas: Donate to the Heifer Foundation and help a family in need build self-sufficiency and better health. (A flock of ducks is still just twenty bucks! Not only that, but you can print a card for the honoree right on the site.)

Drop off some unneeded coats today at a One Warm Coat location.

Food banks across the country are running out of food; find one at Feeding America, or make a donation to the bin at the grocery store. Every dollar donated to Feeding America helps buy 20 pounds of food for hungry families. (Whole Foods and Sunshine Market have bins set up here in the valley.)

Drop off toys for Toys for Tots.

Contribute to your local public television or radio station.

Check out charities at Sixdegrees.org, where you can get a "Good Card". You choose the amount, the gift recipient chooses the charity.

Here it Comes Again

Even though intellectually I've committed to paring down this year, as so many of our friends have, it feels just as hectic. Yes, I'll be buying fewer, and less expensive, presents, but I still have to locate the things and wrap them. Smaller presents take just as much time, if not more, to wrap. And price, high or low, does nothing to assuage the guilt of trying to locate presents with meaning, presents that are Special.

Once, when Mike and I were going through a particularly rough patch in our marriage a few years ago, I was zombie-walking through Cost Plus, late at night, just about this time of year, looking for that final, special, meaningful present. I came across a rack of heart-shaped Christmas tree ornaments, painted gold. I picked through them meticulously, until I found one with the right sheen, the right proportions, to carry the weight of the symbolic gesture I was attempting to make.

I stood in a long, long line, the heavy shopping basket making deep reddish indentations in the crook of my arm. As I reached the front of the line and the bleary-eyed cashier began to ring my order, I spotted a flaw in the heart's finish. Just a little nick, in the back. In those few seconds, I agonized over whether to mention it, or to forget about it and just get on with it.

But I couldn't give a flawed heart. It just had to be perfect. So much depended on it. In the time I'd waited, this heart had become laden with all of the meaning and hope that had gathered like a storm cloud over me in the preceding months. So everyone in line waited while I ran back to grab another one, quickly scanning through the hearts I'd previously rejected. I was back before she'd finished ringing the... whatever the hell else I bought that year and gave away, never to be seen or remembered again, so in the scheme of things, I suppose it wasn't a big deal to anyone else.

But it was a huge deal. For me, at that moment, everything depended on the perfection of that golden heart. So many times, this is what it comes down to for me: a present begins to symbolize the entire relationship, and I find myself standing in some store at half-past nine on a weeknight,, my eyes dried to eggshell from all the mall air, holding some aubergine cashmere shawl, or minuscule jeweled penguin, or whatever, in my hand, wondering if this thing will be a thing that the receiver recognizes as truly special. As meaningful as I, at that moment, am feeling that it is. If I walk away from that one perfect, destined to be misunderstood thing, the guilt hits me immediately. I cannot leave these things behind. Which is why I must Christmas shop very quickly, and with a list. If possible, I need to finish early, before the guilt of not finding the perfect, most meaningful present drives me to go out and seek it all over again.

I don't even want to talk about the emotional weight of handmade gifts, whether they are imagined and made imperfectly or imagined and never completed. I'd need to pay you by the hour.

(There would be a picture here of that heart, which I still hold in my hands for a few extra seconds before I put it on the tree each year, but for some reason, every time I click the "add picture" icon, the "save now" button is activated, and I don't get an opportunity to add my picture-- ever.)

This is just another in a long, long string of frustrations starting with satellite internet (hughes sucks), and ending, for the moment, with the discovery of the AT&T data card, which doesn't suck yet unless it is the cause of my not being able to add pictures. The good news is, I am back on line.

*****
If you're not sure what to make for dinner, try lentil soup: dice some mirepoix vegetables (carrot, celery, onion) and saute with thyme. Meanwhile, put a cup or so of lentils, rinsed, in a saucepan and boil in water or stock until tender (about 30 minutes). If you have some on hand and like it, dice up some ham, chicken or turkey and add to the vegetables. Likewise with chard or other greens. I used some beet greens, and added a pinch of oregano, pepper flake and nutmeg. When the lentils are tender, throw in the contents of the saute pan, and then season to taste with sea salt or Better than Bouillon. Cook together for as little as 0 minutes or as much as a day, serve with sourdough or levain bread brushed with garlic butter.

More soon, my friends.

(Anyone else see "Pumpkin Dump Cake" in the google ads at the right? What the hell is that?)

The Pies that Bind

Images from TG at Monty and Emilio's. Pies not pictured. Thanks for the shots, E!

On Thursday morning, after a little bit of a sleep-in, coffee, reading and breakfast, I started my pumpkin pies. Friends of ours host a gorgeous (see above) and mind-blowingly delicious holiday dinner, and this year I was allowed to bring the pumpkin pie, which I very much looked forward to doing. But I would have made the pie anyway.

My mother's pumpkin pie is a Thanksgiving must-have. Mom's pie was one of the few things that I ever remember my grandmother praising about her cooking. Creamy and light, sweet, but not too sweet, with a flaky, savory crust that contrasts with the smooth center. (I took a pumpkin pie made earlier in the week up to my grandparents on Tuesday, only to find that their freezer had been stocked up with homemade apple pies by one of their caregivers. Pie for weeks!)

There have been many things I have gone without from one Thanksgiving to the next, but Mom's pie is never one of them. The secret to her "secret" pie recipe is the very hot water added to the pie filling just before pouring into the crust, which makes the pie light as it steams away during baking.

I thought of my mother as I spun the flour, salt, shortening and butter in the food processor. (Which she always did by hand, but I had six crusts to make.) I thought of her as I rolled out the dough with her rolling pin, one of a handful of things I took with me when I left home. I thought of her especially as I shaped the edges of the pie with my fingers and thumb, about the way her thumbs bend back a little bit more than the average person's, making a little flourish to her gestures and her crusts, and how she always manages to execute a smooth and perfectly fluted pie edge.

Contact with Mom has been sparse lately. She has her hands full with family in Modesto. But the current was running strong between us Thursday morning, whether she knew it or not.

Just before I took the dogs out for their walks mid-day, I checked my email and found a sweet note from my friend Kristin in Eugene, Oregon, letting me know she was thinking of me, too, as her pumpkin pie, made from Mom's "secret" recipe, was baking, filling their house with cinnamon and spice. It made me smile to think of us smelling the same things, sitting in our kitchens, so many miles away.

All of my Thanksgiving recipes can be found at this link. And here are several pie crust variations: Butter Crust, The Very Best Crust, and Mom's Classic Crust. I recommend the classic for pumpkin pie because there is no sugar and it doesn't over-brown. The Very Best is good for everything else. I'll be using that for an apple pie on Sunday with the just-picked Granny Smiths Grandma gave me. The All Butter, minus the sugar, makes a decadent turkey pot pie for the weekend after the holiday. Don't forget the frozen peas.

Love,
Tam

PS- the lack of photos and posts lately has been largely due to the fact that Hughes satellite service has dragged to a creeping, dial-up style halt. If you can avoid Hughes, I recommend that you do so. Their customer service is so pathetic, and so very, very far away, that it is easier to bring a magazine to the desk to read while waiting for pictures to upload than to spend four hours on the phone in order to complain about it. But it has started to cramp my style.

They are the only game in my little wooded valley, so until someone runs a line or puts up a new tower, I'm stuck with them. Should be upgrading to their second satellite soon. I know that I've promised some of you that I would get kid pictures out there for you to print, but I'm going to have to give you a disk instead, because it just isn't going to happen through Hughes.

Pixie's Big Adventure

Pixie and I went on a trial visit up to Lake Tahoe to see my grandparents this week. We stayed at the dog-friendly Montbleu Casino, (formerly Caesar's Tahoe). Pluses: jacuzzi tub, tons of down pillows, dogs, cats and birds welcome. Minuses: 8th floor pet wing rather far from semi-dark doggie park area, maids vacuuming and having a conversation down the hall at 11 pm, $35 extra pet fee.

Pixie still had a terrific time, especially sleeping on the bed and sitting in Grandpa's lap. I think next time Mike and I will go up and scout the location first to make sure there isn't a semi-dark midnight hike involved, and then Pixie will get to go up again for a visit. Tugboat's legs aren't up to the drive, but luckily, he loves his doggie hotels here in town.

When we arrived, Grandma was practicing her dexterity exercises, and proudly demonstrated her ability to put on and take off a pair of fitted wool gloves. We all had a very nice meatloaf dinner together, as well as coffee and breakfast the next morning.

He SAID I could get up here.

Kiss, kiss, snorgle, snorgle.

Why don't you go and get us some snacks? I'll be right here.

Hot tub, anyone?

Beats the heck out of the Motel 8!

Sunday Morning

I realize that this is only the second post since the election. I've been catching up with friends since then, and as I talk with or email each person, I'm sweetly surprised by the reaction to our new president. Still processing. So relieved.

While bloghopping over the weekend, I stopped off at Orangette and somehow wound up in the archives, wrapped around this lovely post about popovers. So this morning, I got up and made some. Here is the recipe I use, from my mother's red-checkered cookbook. Mom used to make these quite often. The ingredients are simple and usually on hand, and the directions are few. These are yummy piping hot out of the oven for breakfast, with Grandma's strawberry jam and scrambled eggs. (Not on the same popover.) 35 to 40 minutes seems like a long time, but if you set a timer and have something else to do, like drink a cup of coffee and read, or catch up on emails while you let someone else sleep in, it's nothing.

Popovers
1 1/2 tsp shortening (try Spectrum Organic vegetable shortening)
2 eggs, beaten
1 c milk
1 T cooking oil (olive is fine)
1 C flour
pinch salt

Tools
Muffin tin or preferably a deep popover tin
Whisk
Bowl

Method
Preheat oven to 450. Grease a muffin tin or popover tin with the shortening. Preheat pan with oven. Beat eggs, add liquids. Sprinkle in flour, beat until smooth.

Divide evenly in muffin or popover tin, no more than 2/3 full.
Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, reduce heat to 350 and bake for 15-20 minutes more

Adding herbs and finely grated parmesan cheese to these makes a tasty, savory accompaniment to breakfast or dinner. The more cheese you add, the less puffy they'll be. The Orangette recipe is a little more involved. PS- All of my popovers were mile-high with great big perfect bubbly hollows inside EXCEPT the one I saved to photograph.

HBTY

I Voted

No matter which president we wake up with tomorrow, the world always needs a good peanut butter cookie recipe. I looked for one for years, and then tasted the perfect cookie at the restaurant where I worked. Luckily, the young pastry chef was nice enough to share it with me.

This one is truly the best peanut butter cookie you have ever had. The recipe is scaled down for a couple of people plus sharing at work the next day, because most people don't want to make 8 dozen cookies. We refer to it as "Cookies Dammit" because I once sent it to my friend Karen after forgetting to send it for a long time, and that was the title of the email.

I took the picture at the top on my way home from work last night.
V I S U A L I Z E P R E S I D E N T O B A M A

For a refresher course on the Electoral College and how the election process actually works, here is the Wikipedia entry about it. Especially interesting is the the fact that there have only been three times that a candidate has won the popular vote and not received all the votes in the electoral college: twice in the 1800s, and then not again until...2000.

Cookies Dammit- Small Recipe

1 stick butter- room temp if possible
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar (use less if you like)
1 egg
1 1/8 cup peanut butter, preferably natural and chunky
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup cake or AP flour
extra 1/8 cup granulated sugar for marking

Method
Cream butter and sugars in a stand mixer or with a fork and a strong arm. (Definitely warm your butter if you are doing this by hand.)

Mix dry ingredients together in separate bowl.

When sugars are thoroughly blended with butter, add egg and vanilla. When thoroughly blended, add peanut butter.

Mix dry ingredients into bowl, just until combined.

Use two teaspoons to form cookies into roundish lumps on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Use a fork dipped in sugar to mark the classic "waffle-stomper" pattern in the cookies. Bake for ten to twelve minutes at 375 degrees, remove to racks to cool completely before placing on a plate. Best slightly underdone.

Options: Form with a small melon or ice-cream scoop for pretty, evenly round cookies. Leave the lumps as lumps and press a Hershey's kiss in the middle of each cookie. Or press a sugared thumb in the middle of each and add a teaspoon of strawberry jam for peanut-butter-and-jellies.